2 USS Monitor sailors to be interred at Arlington

RICHMOND, Va.—Navy Secretary Ray Mabus says the remains of two unknown Union sailors recovered from the Civil War ironclad USS Monitor will be interred in Arlington National Cemetery on March 8.

In an announcement Tuesday, Mabus said they could be the last Navy personnel from the Civil War buried at Arlington.

The two skeletons and the tattered remains of their uniforms were discovered in the rusted hulk of the Union Civil War ironclad in 2002 when its 150-ton turret was raised from the ocean floor off Cape Hatteras, N.C.

Conservators of the wreck had a forensic reconstruction done on the two sailors' faces in the longshot bid that someone could identify the sailors who went down with the Monitor 150 years ago. However, the sailors' identities remain unknown.